Over 20 local artists will open their homes and personal studios to the public for the 10th—and final—iteration of the Long Beach Mid-City Studio Tour this weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday, residents can drive or bike through the 15 locations across Signal Hill, California Heights, Belmont Heights, the Zaferia District, Lakewood Village and the Rancho Estates.
At each stop, they will peer into the private workspaces of professional artists, whether in their homes, garages or backyard studios.
Artists will be present at each of their studios to share their inspiration and processes with residents. A wide range of art forms will be on display including paintings, photography, drawings, mixed-media, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics, printmaking and installations.
Dried paint and assorted brushes cover one of the mobile bar carts that painter Caryn Baumgartner uses in her home studio on May 30, 2023. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Local artist Annie Stromquist sits at her desk and works inside of a Japanese paper sketchbook inside her home studio on May 30, 2023. Residents can get a tour of her work and studio during the Mid-City Studio Tour. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)
A small group of artists and friends has hosted the event every two years for the past 23 years, but have announced this tour will be the final installment. Gail Werner, one of the founders of the Mid-City Studio Tour, said the decision was made shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we just felt tired,” Werner said. “I think it was from that, you know our frame of mind kind of changed after COVID but we thought, ‘Let’s do one more. We can’t just not come back.’”
Werner and about 10 of her closest artist friends hosted the first Mid-City Studio Tour in the late ‘90s. The Public Corporation for the Arts, what is now known as the Arts Council for Long Beach, used to organize an annual art tour for residents providing brochures, funding and a bus that took people through the many stops.
Once funding for the tour was cut, Werner, Sue Ann Robinson, Slater Barron and more of their friends met at the Long Beach Museum of Art and reminisced on what they were missing. They quickly landed on the idea to create their own tour on a smaller, more intimate scale.
The hardest part at first was getting the word out, Werner said. The artists spoke to local newspapers, applied for grants, told residents about the tour and cleaned their workspaces to prepare for curious eyes.
Every other year since then, residents venture back into people’s homes and studios to admire and purchase new works of art.
“I know from seeing other people’s studios it just felt more personal,” Werner said. “You can see their tools of the trade … so people can see that and I think it makes it more of an experience than just seeing that on the gallery wall.”
Unlike Long Beach’s Open Studio Tour that happens every year, Werner said the biennial nature of the tour is to give artists a long gap in between events so they can fully focus on their work, though many of the artists participate in both tours.
Werner is a Native American painter who also delves into printmaking and encaustic, a process of painting with hot pigmented wax. She said her studio, which is one of two she has in her backyard, will be filled with paintings, brushes, paints, works in progress, hot plates, a printing press and some of her personal collections.
Werner graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1985 with a master’s degree in drawing and painting and has many of her works featured in galleries and schools across Southern California, including a mural in Downtown Long Beach for the 2016 POW! WOW! Festival (now called Long Beach Walls).
The longtime Long Beach artist is hoping that ending the Mid-City Studio Tour will give her more time to work on her own art, though she still harbors a sense of sadness as she says goodbye to their event.
“It was kind of a relief, but at the same time I felt sad about it because I think we had a special way of doing things, a special group and kind of developed camaraderie between all of us,” Werner said. “It’s gonna be a little strange not to do it again.”
Local printmaking artist, Annie Stromquist stands outside of her home with a sign and brochure for the Mid-City Studio Tour on May 30, 2023. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Local painter and mixed-media artist, Caryn Baumgartner stands outside of her home art studio with a sign for the Mid-City Studio Tour on May 30, 2023. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Two painters of deer antlers rest on an easel inside local painter Caryn Baumgartner’s home art studio for display during the Mid-City Studio Tour on May 30, 2023. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Local artist Annie Stromquist stands in front of some of her pandemic inspired artwork inside her home studio that will be on display for the Mid-City Studio Tour on May 30, 2023. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)
The final tour will honor two local artists who passed away since the last Mid-City Studio Tour in 2019. Slater Barron, also known affectionately as the Lint Lady, passed away in 2020 and Pia Pizzo, an Italian mixed-media artist passed away in 2021.
Barron was a mixed-media artist and one of the founders of the tour, who is mostly known for her humorous and introspective pieces made from dryer lint. Pizzo was a widely known artist in Italy and Long Beach who used books as her inspiration and material for her works.
Collections from both of the artists will be presented at Greenly Art Space, a nonprofit gallery in Signal Hill.
Kimberly Hocking, the founder and curator for Greenly Art Space, told the Signal Tribune that she considered Barron one of her dearest friends, and the two of them would regularly meet up over coffee to talk about their art.
Hocking began participating in the Mid-City Studio Tour in 2011 after Barron invited her.
“[Barron] has a profound influence on many artists’ lives in Long Beach and beyond,” Hocking said. “So to be able to honor her legacy, and for me it’s very special because I’ll be showing my work as well so to have my work shown along with her work, I think it’s really fitting.”
Barron showed one of her largest and most personal works of art, a 90-foot canvas about her mother’s Alzheimer’s titled “My Mother’s Garden Part 2” at Greenly Art Space years ago. Hocking said that the two artists were close through the last days of Barron’s life.
Some of Barron’s pieces, as well as a few of Pizzo’s, Hockings and multiple other women artists will be available for sale during the tour.
The Mid-City Studio Tour will take place on Saturday, June 3 and Sunday, June 4 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
See a list of studio tour locations and artists on the tour’s website.
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